Wednesday, February 25, 2015

The city didn't kill these. Now they're flourishing.

Back in 2010, Alejandro Perez was enjoying play time at Hillside Community Center. Community Centers offer a lot of programs for kids that are priced to be affordable.

Five years ago, in the midst of a crippling economic recession, Colorado Springs City Council considered closing the city's community centers.

I wrote extensively about the proposal and about the contributions community centers make to the city (you can read one of those stories here). In the end, the City Council spared the community centers, allowing them to continue their mission to help struggling families, provide low-cost programs for kids, offer a safe space for teens, feed hungry seniors, and tie neighborhoods together.

The Springs runs three community centers in low-income neighborhoods: Deerfield Hills, Hillside, and Meadows Park. A fourth center, Westside, is run privately under a city contract but offers many of the same services as the others.

The city-run community centers were a part of the Indy Give! campaign this year, where they raised $6,723. In a thank-you letter to donors, they recently sent along a report of what they did in 2014, by the numbers: